In 1908, auto race traveled around the world by way of Upstate New York

Saturday

Mar 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2008 at 12:50 PM

Victor N.Y.’s Route 96, with its twisty bridge detour, has tricky spots today. But the old railroad bridge approach used to be far worse once upon a time — with sharp turns, climbs and descents, and soft shoulders.

But the old Route 96 railroad bridge approach used to be far worse once upon a time — with sharp turns, climbs and descents, and soft shoulders.

An intrepid Italian driver found out how soft those shoulders were at the wheel of his global race car, a Zust traveling from New York City west to Paris. The Zust briefly came to grief in Victor 100 years ago, reported a Feb. 21, 1908, Victor Herald article unearthed by historian Babbette Huber about the first around-the-world race.

On board the Zust as an observer was the famous Le Matin and London Times correspondent Antonio Scarfoglio, taking notes as the car came up Route 20 from Geneva at double-digit speeds, on through Canandaigua, N.Y., and Farmington, N.Y., finally approaching the Victor village line.

Then, somewhere on the site of the current Department of Transportation bridge re-construction:

“In a descent from the ‘overhead’ bridge, east of this village (Victor), the Italian car ran into soft earth at the side of the road, the wheels on one side of the ponderous machine sinking so deeply into it that it escaped overturning by but a light margin,” reported the Herald. The car tipped on its side, was righted, and continued without incident.

Other adventures encountered by eight competing cars in the first global race are the subject of author Julie Fenster’s book “Race of the Century: The Heroic True Story of the 1908 New York to Paris Auto Race.”

“We’re a good day trip,” suggested the Watkins Glen research center librarian Glenda Gephardt. “Our mission is preserving the history of motor sports of all types around the world.”

That includes the first auto race to — mostly — circumnavigate the globe.

The winning car, a Thomas Flyer made in Buffalo, N.Y., rolled out of Manhattan, crossed the American continent to Washington state — including the Route 96 Victor bridge — then went by ship to Valdez, Alaska, then to another boat and across the Bering Sea, motoring across Siberia and into Paris, a 22,000-mile trip, finally finishing July 20, 1908.

The race got big international attention, however routine it sounds today. Two hundred fifty thousand people turned out for the start in Times Square on Feb. 12, 1908. Such an event was “like someone getting into a space shuttle today, that’s how new it was,” Huber said.